Boe Boling shows a smartphone photograph of his son Riddick, while his other sons, Darron, left, and Alan, look on at their home in Bayfield. Boling explained that the photo was the first one he took of Riddick after he bought the phone one day in 2012 — but it was also the last one he took of him before he died, which was later that same day.

Nikki Boling, pictured at her home in Bayfield, talks about her son Riddick, whose framed photo sits on the table. Four-year-old Riddick drowned in 2012 in Leslie Grayson's above-ground pool at her Cañon City child-care home.

Kim Cline holds a portrait of her daughter Kaylin, who died while at child care. The portrait of Kaylin was taken on Easter 2008, the day before she died.

At least 24 children have died since 2006 in licensed day-care facilities across Colorado, a state with one of the weakest inspection programs in the nation.

Colorado inspects licensed child-care providers far less frequently than most states, and when state inspectors do find hazardous conditions, they often allow the facilities to stay open, an investigation by The Denver Post found.

From 2006 through last March, at least 43 child-care operators in the state amassed five or more licensing violations apiece, ranging from staff drug use to harsh treatment of children, but only six were closed, according to The Post’s review of state inspection data.

Twenty-four children died from injuries at licensed facilities in Colorado between 2006 and 2012, public health records show. Of those, at least 10 occurred at providers with previous complaints or licensing violations, The Post found.

The number is probably higher than 10 because only in a handful of the deaths did the state provide key details such as the name of the child or the name of the facility. The Post was able to identify and investigate fewer than half of the deaths.

Issues at those 10 operations included overenrollment of children, unsafe driving practices and, in one instance, an allegation that a child sexually abused another child. Some of the centers and homes went longer than the three years required for state inspections.

“We’ve had a caseload that does not meet the national standard, and I’m very concerned about that,” said Mary Anne Snyder, director of Colorado’s Office of Early Childhood, who is hiring more inspectors in the hope of increasing the frequency of visits.

Kaylin Cline died of brain injuries in 2008 after Littleton day-care owner Deborah Pickens fell asleep on the 14-month-old while trying to quiet her, smothering her into a couch.

State officials had allowed Pickens to remain open despite having cited her before for punishing children by locking them in a dark garage where she said spiders would bite them and for locking a child out of her house. The state also previously had cited Pickens for putting too many children in the back seat of a van.

Kim Cline, Kaylin’s mother, said she should not have taken comfort in Pickens’ state license, which helped her decide to send her three children there.

“You see that piece of paper on the wall, and you think that she has been looked over, that she has qualifications,” Cline said. “It gave me security and peace of mind. But in the end, it was just a piece of paper.”

Records show that inspectors began visiting Pickens’ house once a month after her punishment practices came to their attention in 2001. But after she renewed her license in 2002, inspections dwindled to once a year and eventually to just under once every two years.

Pickens, who claimed she was not responsible for Kaylin’s death, was convicted of child abuse resulting in death and was sentenced to four years’ probation. She could not be reached for comment.

After the conviction, Pickens fought a legal battle to try to keep her license. “It seemed like a slap in the face,” Cline said of Pickens’ effort, which ended with a rejection from the Colorado Supreme Court.

The 10 fatalities reviewed by The Post occurred in day-care homes and centers with inspection rates that generally met state guidelines but that were far below the four a year that experts recommend. Only three were in facilities the state had inspected annually. Two had gone as long as four years without an inspection.

Dangers in homes

There are nearly 5,600 licensed providers caring for about 248,000 children in Colorado. About 45 percent of the licenses are for day-care homes, where dangers such as waterbeds, pools, pets and even guns may exist, and where nearly 80 percent of the deaths occurred.

Homes must be licensed in Colorado when care is being provided to two or more unrelated children. Centers that have five or more children need to be licensed.

In fiscal year 2013, Colorado revoked or suspended the licenses of 19 providers.

In 2013, the legislature approved an extra $1.3 million annually for more inspectors. Once they’re all hired, Snyder said, she hopes that child-care
operators won’t go more than 18 months without an inspection.

Colorado is one of only five states that allow licensed child-care homes and centers to go as long as three years without an inspection. Nineteen states
require at least two inspections annually.

By contrast, dog day-care centers in Colorado must be visited annually.

“We need to raise the bar,” said Bill Jaeger, vice president for early childhood initiatives for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group.

“We need to expect more in terms of the quality, health and safety at these places because we owe that to our youngest and most vulnerable,” he said. “But on the other side, if we don’t provide more resources to meet new standards, we will be putting facilities in danger of going out of business, and there is a critical need for these facilities.”

After the new hires, each inspector will be responsible, on average, for 100 centers and homes — a caseload double what state officials and national experts say is reasonable.

Snyder, who took office in 2012, said she has changed geographic territories of inspectors and improved technology to create efficiencies. Her office also conducts risk profiles, looking at levels of complaints and staff turnover, to determine who should get inspected more often.

The Post reviewed state databases for complaints, inspections, investigations and adverse actions for licensed child-care providers from 2002 to March 2014. In addition, public health officials supplied limited data on all deaths from 2006 to 2012.

Records show operators remained open despite violating limits on the number of children they are allowed. They continued operating when children turned up with bruises, were allegedly sexually abused by other children and were left alone in cars.

Twenty-four children died from injuries at licensed facilities in Colorado between 2006 and 2012, public health records show. Of those, at least 10 occurred at providers with previous complaints or licensing violations, The Post found.

Even when alarms were raised, the state did not always meet its own rules for a response. In assessing allegations deemed very serious, inspectors failed nearly 17 percent of the time to conduct on-site inspections within the required 48 hours. For allegations deemed serious, inspectors failed nearly 22 percent of the time to visit within the mandated seven days.

More than a dozen licensed centers and homes went without inspections months after such complaints, data shows.

In the past year, the state has begun reviewing monthly how quickly inspectors respond to complaints. Compliance has shot up to nearly 100 percent, state data show.

Staying in businessOfficials allowed Dammi Seneviratne, owner of a north Denver day-care home, to stay open after she admitted to jamming too many children into a vehicle. They also didn’t move to close her down after a parent complained that her child may have been sexually abused by another child there.

The state did not act after learning Seneviratne failed to conduct a required criminal background check on a woman she said had moved into her house. And she remained in business despite findings of unsafe sleep practices, the existence of a swing-and-slide set that did not meet safety rules, and a report that she took in too many children.

Jeremiah Saunders choked to death in 2010 when he was alone in Seneviratne’s basement. The 17-month-old’s head had became wedged in the wires of a toy, an autopsy found. The state finally moved to close Seneviratne down after police arrested her for child abuse related to the death.

Seneviratne said she had briefly left Jeremiah in a highchair eating crackers. Investigators later determined her account couldn’t be true. They found that a significant amount of time passed between his death and when ambulances were called, according to a state and county review. The autopsy found Jeremiah’s stomach was “essentially empty.”

Seneviratne’s home had been inspected about once every two years, records show. She pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in death and was sentenced to eight years’ probation.

State officials face similar complexities when they find licensing violations at child-care homes.

Nearly 35 percent of operators who initially faced suspension or revocation of their licenses from 2006 to last March were able to remain open through appeal or negotiation, The Post found. Snyder said the state can decide to place a facility on probation, which requires improvements and increased inspections, as an alternative to shutting it down.

“We’re not out to just close facilities,” she said. “We want to assist them. We want access to high-quality child care for kids in Colorado, so we do settle (the cases) and we do work with facilities.”

She denied those settlements put children in harm’s way. “Our priority is always the health and safety of children. We’re willing to err on that side if we have to.”

The owner of a day-care home in Denver’s Washington Park stayed open after the state cited her following the death of a sleeping 3-month-old in 2011.

Officials moved to shut down the home after an inspector found the owner had placed soft foam padding in the crib instead of the firm padding that state rules require. The owner also had put the infant in a wrap that restrained the baby’s arms and wasn’t using sound-monitoring equipment, officials found. The business had been cited before for disallowed sleep practices and hazardous conditions.

The owner, Suzanne Strickland, protested that another state inspector had told her to use the foam padding, that the parents had wanted her to use the wrap and that the state’s rule on sound monitoring didn’t apply since she liked to be in the room where children slept.

Strickland was not arrested or charged, and the state eventually allowed her to remain open under a probationary status.

In an interview, Strickland said she wonders whether the child would be alive if she had not used the foam pad or wrap. She said she no longer takes care of infants.

“You do things the best way you know how, and when something bad happens, you second-guess everything you have done,” Strickland said.

Licensing standards

More than two-thirds of licensed child-care deaths in Colorado from 2006 to 2012 occurred while babies were sleeping, prompting public health officials in the state to push for more restrictive licensing standards.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment wants annual training on safe sleep practices for licensed providers — something that 18 other states require. The state’s human services agency is considering adopting that recommendation along with further restrictions on sleep materials.

A state inspector warned Pamela McQuain it wasn’t safe to let babies sleep facedown on her waterbed. But weeks later, inspectors returned to her Westminster home — one with a history of license violations for hazardous conditions — this time to investigate a death.

Four-month-old Lorenzo died in his sleep at the home in 2008. Inspectors concluded McQuain lied when she told them she hadn’t let the baby sleep in her room with the waterbed — the very bed they recently had told her to stop using.

A year before Lorenzo’s death, an inspector had checked into a complaint that McQuain left a wailing infant alone in the home in a car seat in urine-soaked diapers with a blanket over his head. The inspector found hazardous conditions and unsafe sleep practices.

After Lorenzo died, an administrative law judge ruled that the business could stay open. An inspector returned to the home in 2010 and found new violations, including not locking up a rifle and a handgun.

The state finally won a favorable revocation ruling later in 2010, more than two years following the death, after pointing out that McQuain had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child abuse.

McQuain, in an interview, denied letting Lorenzo sleep on her waterbed when he died. “It’s all a crapful of lies,” she said of the state’s case.

A review of state licensing data showed that day-care providers were penalized for child abuse or sexual offenses on a child at least 427 times from 2002 to last March. Another 55 licensing actions were for felony convictions, including domestic violence and drug trafficking.

Officials found that providers failed to maintain safe and sanitary conditions at least 81 times.

Legal with safeguards

Hazards may exist at child-care homes that seem benign but can turn deadly. At least 107 of the state’s licensed homes have guns and ammunition on the premises, which are legal as long as they are locked in a gun safe, records show.

In contrast, more than half of states bar firearms from licensed child-care facilities. Another 49 providers in Colorado have hot tubs, pools or trampolines, also legal with safeguards.

There were troubling signs before 4-year-old Riddick Boling drowned in 2012 in Leslie Grayson’s above-ground pool at her Cañon City child-care home.

As far back as 1999, inspectors had found hazardous items within children’s reach, a trampoline they were able to use and no accessible fire extinguisher.

State officials allowed her to stay open.

Inspectors returned every two years, often noting deficiencies. They found hazardous play areas, no lock on a hot tub and no rabies vaccination for a cat. A doctor reported in 2008 that Grayson’s dog had bitten a child, but Grayson said the child had just slipped on a stone.

After that, inspectors didn’t visit the home for more than three years. When they did, in 2011, they found Grayson hadn’t sufficiently protected children from her stove and kitchen items. But again, officials allowed Grayson to remain open.

Boling died nearly a year after the final inspection.

Grayson admitted to investigators that she left the children unattended while they swam. Riddick couldn’t touch the bottom. Although Grayson had been licensed to care for eight children, she admitted 13 were at her home that day.

Grayson pleaded guilty to one count of felony child abuse resulting in death and one count of misdemeanor child abuse, and she was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years’ probation. She declined comment.

“This was pure negligence,” said Nikki Boling, Riddick’s mother. “We wanted to ensure that she never had another opportunity to neglect another child in that way, so no family would have to go through this again.”

Boling said the state should have been more vigilant with Grayson. She recalled that when she was a restaurant manager, she kept everything up to code because she knew inspectors could show up at any time.

“If the state would have inspected her more thoroughly and more often, then she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to become lackadaisical,” Boling said. “Absolutely.”

Christopher N. Osher is a reporter on the investigation team at The Denver Post who has covered law enforcement, judicial and regulatory issues for the news organization. He also has reported from war zones in Africa.

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